"The time for silence is gone, and the time for
speaking has come." With these words (based on Eccles. 3:7) of the dedicatory preface to
Amsdorf, Luther introduces his address, to his most Serene and Mighty
Imperial Majesty, and to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation,
respecting a Reformation of the Christian Estate." The preface is dated
on the Eve of St. John the Baptist (June 23), 1520; the book was
hastily completed July 20,237237 On that date he informed Wencislaus Link:
"Editur noster libellus in Papam de reformanda ecclesia vernaculus,
ad universam nobilitatem Germaniae, qui summe offensurus est Romam ....
Vale, et ora pro me." De Wette, I. 470.
and before Aug. 18 no less than four thousand
copies—an enormous number for those
days—were published, and a new edition called for,
besides reprints which soon appeared in Leipzig and Strassburg.

The book is a most stirring appeal to the German
nobles, who, through Hutten and Sickingen, had recently offered their
armed assistance to Luther. He calls upon them to take the much-needed
Reformation of the Church into their own hands; not, indeed, by force
of arms, but by legal means, in the fear of God, and in reliance upon
his strength. The bishops and clergy refused to do their duty; hence
the laity must come to the front of the battle for the purity and
liberty of the Church.

Luther exposes without mercy the tyranny of the
Pope, whose government, he says, "agrees with the government of the
apostles as well as Lucifer with Christ, hell with heaven, night with
day; and yet he calls himself Christ’s Vicar, and the
Successor of Peter."

The book is divided into three parts:
—

1. In the first part, Luther pulls down what he
calls the three walls of Jericho, which the papacy had erected in
self-defense against any reformation; namely, the exclusion of the
laity from all control, the exclusive claim to interpret the
Scriptures, and the exclusive claim to call a Council.

Under the first head, he brings out clearly and
strongly, in opposition to priestcraft, the fundamental Protestant
principle of the general priesthood of all baptized Christians. He
attacks the distinction of two estates, one spiritual, consisting of
Pope, bishops, priests, and monks; and one temporal, consisting of
princes, lords, artificers, and peasants. There is only one body, under
Christ the Head. All Christians belong to the spiritual estate.
Baptism, gospel and faith,—these alone make spiritual
and Christian people.238238 "Was aus der Taufe gekrochen ist, das mag sich
rühmen, dass es schon Priester, Bischof, und Papst geweihet
sei." We
are consecrated priests by baptism; we are a royal priesthood, kings
and priests before God (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 5:10). The only difference,
then, between clergy and laity, is one of office and function, not of
estate.

Luther represents here the ministerial office as
the creature of the congregation; while at a later period, warned by
democratic excesses, and the unfitness of most of the congregations of
that age for a popular form of government, he laid greater stress upon
the importance of the ministry as an institution of Christ. This idea
of the general priesthood necessarily led to the emancipation of the
laity from priestly control, and their participation in the affairs of
the Church, although this has been but very imperfectly carried out in
Protestant state churches. It destroyed the distinction between higher
(clerical and monastic), and lower morality; it gave sanctity to the
natural relations, duties, and virtues; it elevated the family as equal
in dignity to virginity; it promoted general intelligence, and
sharpened the sense of individual responsibility to the Church. But to
the same source may be traced also the undue interference of kings,
princes, and magistrates in ecclesiastical matters, and that degrading
dependence of many Protestant establishments upon the secular power.
Kingcraft and priestcraft are two opposite extremes, equally opposed to
the spirit of Christianity. Luther, and especially Melanchthon,
bitterly complained, in their later years, of the abuse of the
episcopal power assumed by the magistrate, and the avarice of princes
in the misappropriation of ecclesiastical property.

The principle of the general priesthood of the
laity found its political and civil counterpart in the American
principle of the general kingship of men, as expressed in the
Declaration of Independence, that "all men are born free and
equal."

2. In the second part, Luther chastises the
worldly pomp of the Pope and the cardinals, their insatiable greed, and
exactions under false pretenses.

3. In the third part, he deals with practical
suggestions. He urges sweeping reforms in twenty-seven articles, to be
effected either by the civil magistrate, or by a general council of
ministers and laymen.

He recommends the abolition of the annates, of the
worldly pomp and idolatrous homage paid to the Pope (as kissing his
feet), and of his whole temporal power, so that he should be hereafter
merely a spiritual ruler, with no power over the emperor except to
anoint and crown him, as a bishop crowns a king, as Samuel crowned Saul
and David.

He strongly demands the abrogation of enforced
clerical celibacy, which destroys instead of promoting chastity, and is
the cause of untold misery. Clergymen should be allowed to marry, or
not to marry, according to their gift and sense of duty.

Masses for the dead should be abolished, since
they have become a solemn mockery, and devices for getting money, thus
exciting the anger of God.

Processions, saints’ days, and
most of the public festivals, except Sunday, should be abrogated, since
holy days have become most unholy by drinking, gambling, and
idling.

Monasteries should be reduced in number, and
converted into schools, with freedom to enter and to leave without
binding vows.

Certain punishments of the Canon law should cease,
especially the interdict which silences God’s word and
service,—a greater sin than to kill twenty Popes at
once.

Fasts should be voluntary and optional; for whilst
at Rome they laugh at fasts, they let us abroad eat oil which they
would not think fit for greasing their boots, and then sell us the
liberty of eating butter and other things; whereas the apostle says
that the gospel has given us liberty in all such matters (1 Cor. 10:25
sq.).

He also would forbid all begging in Christendom;
each town should support its own poor, and not allow strange beggars to
come in, whether pilgrims or mendicant monks; it is not right that one
should work that another may be idle, and live ill that another may
live well, but "if any would not work, neither should he eat" (2 Thess.
3:10).

He counsels a reduction of the clerical force, and
the prohibition of pluralities. "As for the fraternities, together with
indulgences, letters of indulgence, dispensations, masses, and all such
things, let them all be drowned and abolished."

He recommends (Art. 24) to do justice to, and make
peace with, the Bohemians; for Hus and Jerome of Prague were unjustly
burnt, in violation of the safe-conduct promised by the Pope and the
Emperor. Heretics should be overcome with books, not with fire; else,
the hangmen would be the most learned doctors in the world, and there
would be no need of study."

In Art. 25, Luther urges a sound reformation of
the universities, which had become "schools of Greek fashion" and
"heathenish manners" (2 Macc. 4:12, 13), and are, full of dissolute
living." He is unjustly severe upon Aristotle, whom he calls a "dead,
blind, accursed, proud, knavish heathen teacher." His logic, rhetoric,
and poetic might be, retained; but his physics, metaphysics, ethics,
and the book "Of the Soul" (which teaches that the soul dies with the
body) ought to be banished, and the study of the languages,
mathematics, history, and especially of the Holy Scriptures, cultivated
instead. "Nothing is more devilishly mischievous," he says, "than an
unreformed university." He would also have the Canon law banished, of
which there is "nothing good but the name," and which is no better than
"waste paper."

He does not spare national vices. He justly
rebukes the extravagance in dress, the usury, and especially the
intemperance in eating and drinking, for which, he says, "we Germans
have an ill reputation in foreign countries, as our special vice, and
which has become so common, and gained so much the upper hand, that
sermons avail nothing." (His frequent protest against the "Saufteufel"
of the Germans, as he calls their love of drink, is still unheeded. In
temperance the Southern nations of Europe are far ahead of those of the
North.)

In conclusion, he expresses the expectation that
he will be condemned upon earth. "My greatest care and fear is, lest my
cause be not condemned by men; by which I should know for certain that
it does not please God. Therefore let them freely go to work, Pope,
bishop, priest, monk, or doctor: they are the true people to persecute
the truth, as they have always done. May God grant us all a Christian
understanding, and especially to the Christian nobility of the German
nation true spiritual courage, to do what is best for our unhappy
Church. Amen."

The book was a firebrand thrown into the
headquarters of the papal church. It anticipated a reply to the papal
bull, and prepared the public mind for it. It went right to the heart
of the Germans, in their own language wielded with a force as never
before, and gave increased weight to the hundred grievances of long
standing against Rome. But it alarmed some of his best friends. They
condemned or regretted his biting severity.239239 "Omnes ferme [fere] in me
damnant mordacitatem," he says in letter to Link, Aug. 19,
1520. Staupitz tried at the eleventh hour to prevent the
publication, and soon afterwards (Aug. 23, 1520) resigned his position
as general vicar of the Angustinians, and retired to Salzburg, feeling
himself unequal to the conflict. John Lange called the book a "blast
for assault, atrocious and ferocious." Some feared that it might lead
to a religious war. Melanchthon could not approve the violence, but
dared not to check the spirit of the new Elijah. Luther defended
himself by referring to the example of Paul and the prophets: it was
necessary to be severe in order to get a hearing; he felt sure that he
was not moved by desire for glory or money or pleasure, and disclaimed
the intention of stirring up sedition and war; he only wished to clear
the way for a free general council; he was perhaps the forerunner of
Master Philippus in fighting Ahab and the prophets of Baal after the
example of Elijah (1 Kings 18).240240 See his letters to John Lange (Aug. 18, 1520)
and to Wenceslaus Link (Aug. 19) in De Wette, I.
477-479.

NOTES.

The following extracts give a fair idea of
Luther’s polemic against the Pope in this remarkable
book: —

"The custom of kissing the
Pope’s feet must cease. It is an un-Christian, or
rather an anti-Christian example, that a poor sinful man should suffer
his feet to be kissed by one who is a hundred times better than he. If
it is done in honor of his power, why does he not do it to others in
honor of their holiness? Compare them together: Christ and the Pope.
Christ washed his disciples’ feet, and dried them, and
the disciples never washed his. The Pope, pretending to be higher than
Christ, inverts this, and considers it a great favor to let us kiss his
feet: whereas if any one wished to do so, he ought to do his utmost to
prevent them, as St. Paul and Barnabas would not suffer themselves to
be worshiped as gods by the men at Lystra, saying, ’We
also are men of like passions with you’ (Acts 14:14
seq.). But our flatterers have brought things to such a pitch, that
they have set up an idol for us, until no one regards God with such
fear, or honors him with such reverence, as they do the Pope. This they
can suffer, but not that the Pope’s glory should be
diminished a single hairsbreadth. Now, if they were Christians, and
preferred God’s honor to their own, the Pope would
never be willing to have God’s honor despised, and his
own exalted; nor would he allow any to honor him, until he found that
God’s honor was again exalted above his own.

"It is of a piece with this revolting pride, that
the Pope is not satisfied with riding on horseback or in a carriage,
but, though he be hale and strong, is carried by men like an idol in
unheard-of pomp. I ask you, how does this Lucifer-like pride agree with
the example of Christ, who went on foot, as did also all his apostles?
Where has there been a king who lived in such worldly pomp as he does,
who professes to be the head of all whose duty it is to despise and
flee from all worldly pomp—I mean, of all Christians?
Not that this need concern us for his own sake, but that we have good
reason to fear God’s wrath, if we flatter such pride,
and do not show our discontent. It is enough that the Pope should be so
mad and foolish, but it is too much that we should sanction and approve
it."

After enumerating all the abuses to which the Pope
and his Canon law give sanction, and which he upholds with his usurped
authority, Luther addresses him in this impassioned style:
—

"Dost thou hear this, O Pope! not the most holy,
but the most sinful? Would that God would hurl thy chair headlong from
heaven, and cast it down into the abyss of hell! Who gave you the power
to exalt yourself above God? to break and to loose what he has
commanded? to teach Christians, more especially Germans, who are of
noble nature, and are famed in all histories for uprightness and truth,
to be false, unfaithful, perjured, treacherous, and wicked? God has
commanded to keep faith and observe oaths even with enemies: you dare
to cancel his command, laying it down in your heretical, antichristian
decretals, that you have power to do so; and through your mouth and
your pen Satan lies as he never lied before, teaching you to twist and
pervert the Scriptures according to your own arbitrary will. O Lord
Christ! look down upon this, let thy day of judgment come and destroy
the Devil’s lair at Rome. Behold him of whom St. Paul
spoke (2 Thess. 2:3, 4), that he should exalt himself above
thee, and sit in thy Church, showing himself as
God—the man of sin and the child of damnation .... The
Pope treads God’s commandments under foot, and exalts
his own: if this is not Antichrist, I do not know what it is."

Janssen (II. 100) calls Luther’s
"Address to the German Nobility" "das eigentliche Kriegsmanifest der
Lutherisch-Huttenschen Revolutionspartei," and "ein Signal zum
gewaltsamen Angriff." But the book nowhere counsels war; and in the
letter to Link he says expressly: "nec hoc a me agitur, ut seditionem
moveam, sed ut concilio generali libertatem asseram"(De Wette, I. 479).
Janssen quotes (p. 103) a very vehement passage from
Luther’s contemporaneous postscript to a book of
Prierias which he republished (De juridica et irrefragabili veritate
Romanae Ecclesiae Romanique Pontificis), expressing a wish that the
Emperor, kings, and princes would make a bloody end to Pope and
cardinals and the whole rabble of the Romish Sodom. But this extreme
and isolated passage is set aside by his repeated declarations against
carnal warfare, and was provoked by the astounding assertions of
Prierias, the master of the papal palace, that the Pope was the
infallible judge of all controversies, the head of all spiritual, the
father of all secular princes, the head of the Church and of the whole
universe (caput totius orbis universi). Against such blasphemy Luther
breaks out in these words: "Mihi vero videtur, si sic pergat furor
Romanistarum, nullum reliquum esse remedium, quam ut imperator, reges
et principes vi et armis accincti aggrediantur has pestes orbis
terrarum, remque non jam verbis, sed ferro decernant .... Si fures
furca, si latrones gladio, si haereticos igne plectimus, cur non magis
hos magistros perditionis, hos cardinales, hos papas et totam istam
romanae Sodomae colluviem, quae ecclesiam Dei sine fine corrumpit,
omnibus armis impetimus, et manus nostras in sanguine eorum lavamus?
tanquam a communi et omnium periculosissimo incendio nos nostrosque
liberaturi." Erl. ed., Opera
Latina, II. 107. He means a national resistance under the guidance of
the Emperor and rightful rulers.